The NCI Office of Cancer Nanotechnology Research (OCNR) funds several efforts within or through Frederick National Laboratory, including 1) the Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL), which provides a comprehensive assay cascade to characterize nanoparticles physical attributes, in vitro biological properties, and in vivo compatibility using animal models. NCLs efforts aim to accelerate the translation of promising and nanotechnology-derived cancer therapeutics and diagnostics from the advanced discovery phase to clinical trials; 2) Small animal imaging program (SAIP) which supports imaging of live animals(primarily rodents) for the purpose of acquiring pre-clinical data to validate new imaging agents and evaluate new drugs and perform biodistribution studies; and 3) research with the purpose of identifying and evaluating nanotherapeutic constructs which show improvement in performance (better efficacy, increased safe dose, reduced side effects) as compared to free drug delivery.